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Brown v. Board of Education
Plessy v. Ferguson was the case that allowed racial segregation under the guise of "separate but equal." Linda Brown, an eight-year-old African-American girl, had been denied permission to attend an elementary school only five blocks from her home in Topeka, Kansas. School officials refused to register her at the nearby school. Linda Brown's parents filed a lawsuit to force the schools to admit her to the nearby school. The court effectively overturned the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Rev. George Lee Killed
Rev. George Lee was assassinated on May 7th, 1955 in Belzoni, Mississippi. He was driving his car late at night when someone puled up next to him and fired three shots. He did not make it to the hospital. -
Emmett Louis Till Murdered
Emmett Till was a African American teenager in Money, Mississippi. He was 14 when he was killed for speaking/flirting with Carolyn Bryant who was 21. A few nights after the meeting Carolyn's Husband and his half brother came and took Emmett. They took him beat him, shot him, then they left him in the Tallahatchie River. -
Rosa Parks Arrested for Refusing to Give up Her Seat.
Rosa Parks was a 42-year-old African American seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white man that got on while she was riding on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. For doing this, Rosa Parks was arrested/fined for breaking the rules. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
President Eisenhower signed the bill and the Civil Rights Act then became a law. The point of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to make sure that all Americans had their right to vote. -
Little Rock, Arkansas
In fall of 1957 Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling at Central High School. Central High was a school for whites only. Eisenhower sent the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to help them in restoring order in Little Rock, Arkansas. -
Mack Charles Parker Taken from Jail
Mack Charles Parker was abducted from the jail where he was being detained in Pearl River County by a lynch mob led by J.P. Walker, a former deputy sheriff. Parker was shot and thrown into the Pearl River just three days before his trial was scheduled to begin. The jailer named Jewel Alford had helped the mob’s access to Parker. -
Attack of the Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists and they rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) helped organize freedom rides. There were both blacks and whites in the rides. -
James Meredith Enrolls at Ole Miss
James Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi only to be rejected twice. Up until that point Ole Miss had been a whites only school. The US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had a series of phone calls with Governor Barnett between September 27 to October 1. Barnett finally agreed to let Meredith enroll in the university. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered 500 U.S. Marshals to accompany Meredith during his arrival and registration. -
Medgar Evers Assassinated
Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist from Mississippi. Evers was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council. Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 rifle the bullet ripped through his heart. He staggered 30 feet before falling. He was taken to the local hospital. Where he was initially refused entry because of his race. His family had to explain who he was and then he was admitted he then died in the hospital 50 minutes later. -
The March on Washington
The March was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States. This is where Martin Luther King Jr.’s gave his “I Have a Dream” speech a call for racial justice and equality. -
Poll Tax Outlawed
A number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included a grandfather clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. The poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. But the ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed poll taxes. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. That new law outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that were open to the general public. -
March to Selma
The March to Selma was organized in desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote. They were met by violent resistance by state and local authorities. Johnson presented a bill to a joint session of Congress. The bill was passed that summer and signed by Johnson known as the Voting Rights Act. -
Congress Passed Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Civil Rights Movement on, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. It was designed to enforce the voting rights that are guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. -
Thurgood Marshall First Black Supreme Court Justice
Before becoming a judge Marshall had been a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then served as the Solicitor General. I think it was a monumental event because he was the first Black supreme court justice but now the only one was dead. -
Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
King had gone out onto the balcony and was standing near his room when he was struck. The bullet entered through King's right cheek it broke his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein, before lodging in his shoulder. Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man (believed to be Ray) fleeing from a rooming across the street. He represented blacks & fought for them. So when he died it was the death of a hero, who will always be remembered.
